fow

[Lowlander]

Especially when said units are pitted against each other, in other words does the good strong Battalion's bigger patrol or patrols, prevent the weak Company's diminished patrol from performing the task as was the case in real life.

The nature of patrols is to try to avoid combat if at all possible, so I'm not sure that a larger unit's patrols would necessary spot, let alone deter, a smaller unit's patrols.

Yes, I know that on occasion they would run into each other, but the preference was usually to get back to your unit alive and with intel, not to go "cowboy."

Maybe I've lost the plot here but again if one side is forced to retire,hunkerdown or engaged due to better or more numerous patrols and ain't willing to go cowboy, well therefore IMO no Intel would be gleaned about the disposition of the enemy units at 2 hex range due to the fact they were blocked I.E. outpatrolled.

I'm sure I've read passing accounts of patrols going MIA, returning with losses having been intercepted in no man's land etc.
Patrol com'in in !!!.
As in real life people tend to recall all the good things that happened in the past and do not dwell on the bad points.

Look how many times were Armies surprised with Major offensives across the whole front during WW2, let alone 1 Hex, because they did'nt have any Intel of the looming storm, why did this happen after all the patrols always find out what out there, well at least in these games.

[Philippe]

Perhaps I'm not thinking about this correctly, but for me the key piece of intelligence is usually the simple presence or absence of the enemy.

If you can't do detailed patrolling because of enemy patrols, he's just confirmed his presence by interfering with your activity. You may not know exactly what he's got, but you most certainly do know that you're not dealing with an empty sector.

Your patrols are going to detect the presence or absence of a front line. But they won't detect the panzer division sitting two or three kilometers beyond that.

So if you're going to try to surprise an opponent, set up a good screen of innocuous looking units, and make sure that before you launch the attack the units from your attacking force are concentrated far enough back that he won't notice the presence of any units from a different higher unit.

I think the game system actually does a fair job of representing that last part.

On the intel side, I think the game probably gives you too much information. I've always felt that if you haven't managed a complete identification of an enemy unit by being in close contact with it for a few turns, the image in the unit box should really be one of the mystery images, rather than a unit specific image without a name. A detailed unit image often gives away what you're dealing with a little sooner than it should. And it's a particular problem when it's a unit image of a headquarters unit and contains the name or symbol of that particular headquarters.

In game terms what that translates out to is that as long as an enemy unit is fully identified in its text field, you should see a black silhouette in the unit image box. I guess what I'm saying is that I want to see more question marks on the battlefield.